Min Jin Lee on “American Hagwon,” Her First Novel After the Phenomenon of “Pachinko”
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How did Min Jin Lee’s immigrant childhood shape her path as a writer?
The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and The New Yorker.
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Now, some authors publish a book every year or every couple of years, and then there are those who disappear, like cicadas, buried underground for a long period of time, cultivating the work, and then they prepare to re-emerge. Min Jin Lee is one of those writers. Once a corporate lawyer, she quit her job and spent more than 10 years working on her debut novel, Free Food for Millionaires. And a decade went by before we read Pachinko, a historical epic and truly a phenomenon that was translated into some thirty-five languages. And now, after nearly another decade, we finally have a chance to read Min Jin Li's third book, American Hagwan. It follows a Korean family as they move from Seoul to Sydney, Australia, to Southern California.
All in pursuit of a better life and the best possible education for the kids. Min, tell me about arriving in the United States. I think you were seven years old. Mm-hmm. What was your English like when you were seven years old and you were up here?
So
And you arrived where and
fifty years ago.
Does it really?
Yeah, fifty. Yeah.
And What do you remember of those years? What do you remember of those that initial landing here, seeing America? Hearing English rushing at you and how quickly did you adapt?
Oh, I was so disappointed. Because in Korea my mother had this set of Grimms fairy tales that she bought. And I read them as a kid and I thought that America would be like Cinderella.
It's not, is it?
No. So I get off the plane, I'm kind of expecting ball gowns and castles and white horses and carriages, but it looks just like soul. Except with not Korean people. And I didn't even have the words, not English or Korean to even just say I was misled. So that was really shocking.
And where did you find yourself right away? Where did you move to? What was life like right away?
Oh well my uncle John invited us. So he was a software engineer at IBM. So he was able to sponsor our immigration. And he went to college in the un um at a school in Missouri. So he's been in America for a long time. He he passed away, I'm sorry, during COVID. So we get to his house in Elmhurst, Queens, and he's renting a I think it was a two bedroom apartment on the second floor of some slubby house. And we get there and there's five of us and there's four of them and we're in the living room. And I think m our aunt was not happy. S you know, she's passed away. She was not happy that all of a sudden her husband's brother her husband's sister's families parked in the living room. And As a kid I kind of thought it was an adventure.
But I it was really uh And
you didn't know it was for for reals that it was for that it was permanent.
I couldn't believe there were no like white horses and carriages in Prince Charlie. I was feeling a my wife's my
wife's grandmother came to this country from Poland.
Yeah.
And she arrived And there was there was a parade and she thought the parade she was a little girl too, she thought the parade was for her arriving in America. It was Saint Patrick's Day. Yeah. That would
have been me. Yeah. No, because I really kinda thought it would be different. And then of course my uncle made it better because he bought this giant vat of bananas. And in Korea at the time, bananas were so expensive. Yeah. And they're really tiny, they're from Jeju. But here they're just these giant things from Ecuador. Yeah. And he said, You can have as many as you like.
So you just ate bananas and how how quickly did you also learn to speak English and to read English?
I think reading took me almost no time at all. Бікін токмес. Наб'яза і кудан до I really couldn't talk to people. I t I've taken so many classes, David, to sit here with you.
Really? Why why would speaking take so much longer than reading?
Well, I couldn't speak in Korea either, really, so How do you mean I couldn't talk? Um this is verifiable. I just really couldn't talk to anybody. I talked a little bit at home, but even then not that much.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How did Min Jin Lee’s immigrant childhood shape her path as a writer?
0:02–6:00
2
Why did Min Jin Lee leave corporate law to write novels?
6:00–8:02
3
How does Min Jin Lee use research to create fiction about diaspora?
8:02–12:17
4
What is a hagwon, and how does it shape education in American Hagwon?
12:17–15:55
5
What does Min Jin Lee mean when she says history has failed ordinary people?
15:55–18:52
6
How can social novels explore morality and challenge injustice?
18:52–23:31
7
How does Min Jin Lee’s storytelling help readers connect across cultures?
23:31–25:56
8
What are Min Jin Lee’s writing rituals and plans for her next books?
25:56–29:49